The Killer Bees - A True Life Story

I was still in school, in twelfth standard sometime in 1982. We
were staying in a place called Ambala Cantonment. On weekends there
used to be a Hindi language movie screened on an old 20 inch TV in a
small Office room by the Army unit Commanding Officer for all
personnel other than Officers. The room had a couple of chairs and a
dozen long wooden benches. The movie is screened only once, so I and
my two brothers would force our parents to come along because
without parents, the Army guard won’t let us get into the Office
area.

We actually used to look forward to see the movie every weekend.
My father had only one bicycle as a transport. But the Army would
send their one tonner vehicle to pick up families. And there were
only three families who would go for these movies because only these
three had grown up children who would pester them for the 20 inch
movie.

So, every weekend there would be eight kids and six parents
who would watch the Hindi movie in the Army Office which had a TV.
The parents sit on chairs and we used to pile up benches one on top
of the other and sit high up and watch the movies. This story is not
about the weekend movies, but about a killer bee hive which I used
to see about 50 yards away from the road from army gate to the movie
screening office. The hive was about 2 meters long and almost
touched ground.

I Wanted To Extract Killer Bee Honey - A True Life Story

I have seen people extract honey from these killer bee hives on
trees enroute to my school. I have stood there watching them use a
small fire which is more smoke than fire and then remove the bees
with their bare hands. Once exposed the thick part of the bee hive
closer to the tree trunk it was hanging was full of honey. I have
seen these people get almost three bucket full of honey from a
single large bee hive like the one I was seeing.

Seeing them do it,
I have also tried this with some small bee hives in bushes just the
size of a small coconut. I have got stung by a couple of bees as
well. A sting from these small bee variety is too painful for almost
two to three hours and the part body where the bee stings, will
swell up and you can feel the heat below your skin even without
touching it.

I was once stung by a small bee in the area between my eyes and
when I looked into the mirror, the swelling there made me look so
ugly in addition to the severe pain. The pain subsides, but the
swelling takes about two days to go. The problem was going out of
the house when people start staring at my bee stung, ugly non-human
face. And in school I was the center of attraction and got to learn
quite a lot of new abusive words the next day.

Notwithstanding all that experience I wanted to extract honey
from this super large killer bee hive. Each bee in this hive was
almost an inch in length. But the lure of forest honey and that too
three bucket full was something I could not take my mind off from.
Imagine having honey on bread for the next few months for breakfast.
My decision was final. I hardly saw the movie on the TV screen.
Everyone else was enjoying the movie and the dance numbers.

But I
was in a honey bee world dreaming about the three buckets of pure
natural honey I am going to take home. My mother is going to be
super thrilled. But I was not going to tell the secret right now.
After we reached back home, my parents went on the bicycle for
doing the weekly marketing. The market was about five kilometers
away and they are not going to be home for the next two hours.
Enough and more time for me to accomplish my job.

I Preparated To Extract Honey From Killer Bee HIve - A True Life
Story

I washed the three
buckets in our bathroom with soap and water. Then, I took a three
foot long stick and tied up a small piece of waste cloth. I took a
matchbox and started on my “Mission Honey”. At that moment of happiness and enthusiasm, I never knew that my
Mission Honey is going to be a success or a failure. I thought I
knew everything as I have seen people extract honey from large
killer bee hives on trees and I have myself done this a couple of
times on small bush bee hives.

I walked a bit cautiously so that no
one who knows my father sees me and ask me what I am going for and I
was sure once I tell them, they most likely will stop me from
accomplishing my mission Honey before it even started. I used the
jungle track instead of the road. That being the month of January,
it was too cold and I was wearing a full pants and a pink sweater. I
purposely did not take my gloves because with gloves on, lighting
the match stick would have been difficult.

All honey Bees are naturally very calm beings. But if they find their hive
is under attack or threat, they all become warriors and will sting
anything, be it a wasp, a human, an animal or even an elephant. The
bees have a tank full of venom at their rear part. The read end of
this venom tank is shaped like spike. When the bee hive is disturbed
and the bees go into the fighting mode, they select the target and
fly towards it with both their head and their rear end with the
venom tank spike forward.

Killer Bees Die Immediately After Stinging Victim - A True Life
Story

When the bee contacts the enemy body, the
venom sack spike goes into the flesh of the victim and detaches.
Once the venom sack detaches from the bee, the bee actually dies off
in a few hours. Probably it is of no use to the bee colony without
its venom sack. It is a onetime use venom sack, which does not
regrow. So the bee dies. Now even if it knows it will die after stinging its victim, these
bees attack and sacrifice their own individual life, so that the
rest of the hive individuals and their queen, live and thrive.

The bee's
brain runs like a well written software application. Thinking is not
involved in their action. I somehow managed to reach the spot
bypassing the army gate through the jungle route and finally
slipping through the barbed wire fence, I walked confidently towards
this super large killer bee hive. I have experience of stealing
honey, from small bush bee hive a couple of times. But never had any
experience of doing the same from Killer bee hive. Yes I have seen
it being done once and that gave me the confidence to pull it off.

I Ambushed The Killer Bee Hive - A True Life
Story

As I approached the bee hive and reached about three feet from
it, I realized its real size. This killer bee hive hanging from a
low branch of a small stout tree growing at an angle of about 45
degrees from ground, starts almost from the ground with just about
10 cm clearance from the grass below and was about 3 meter long,
about 30 cm thick and hung about 50 cm all along its length.

Instead
of understand the danger I was going to be in, I was feeling sad
that I have carried only three 10 liter buckets with me and this
super huge killer bee hive must be having over half a quintal honey
in it judging by the sheer size of the bee hive. I looked around. No
one can see me from the army gate or from office. And being a
Sunday, no one was on the roads either. I kept my buckets on the
grass just 3 feet away from that huge killer bee hive, took out the
match box and without wasting any time lighted up the cloth tied on
the stick I was carrying.

I Was To Earn Half My Father's Salary in Ten
Minutes Selling Killer Bee Honey - A True Life Story

I was smiling to myself. Today, I am going to make my parents
proud. My first true earning. So what it is honey, it is Rupees 10 a
kg. So 30 kg would mean Rupees 300. My father’s pay those days was
around Rupees 600. Imagine earning half a month’s pay in just ten
minutes and that too on a Sunday. I was thrilled and rearing to go.
There was a problem. Being post lunch hours, there were winds and
the match stick would blow out before the cloth could catch fire.

I
had almost exhausted the match sticks and my patience as well.
Somehow I managed to make the cloth smoke. That is when I made that
big mistake. Instead of letting the cloth catch fire and burn a little to make
enough smoke and fire, I took it near that killer bee hive too early
to that bee hive which was two times my body size.

A Million Angry Killer Bees Attacked Me Without Warning - A True
Life Story

The few million,
one inch long killer bees who were kind enough to ignore me till
now, despite my presence just a meter away from their hive, were now
super angry. The Bee-in-Charge sent out a very small platoon of
about a 100 bees with their venom spikes pointing, at me, flying at
supersonic speeds. I had never seen, so I never expect this kind of
rude uncivilized behavior from this seemingly calm bee hive.

The very first sting was right in between my eyes and it was so
painful, that I threw the smoking stick, tumbled over my three
metallic army issued buckets, rolled over the ground in pain and
tried to run in some vague direction as I was almost blind with pain
and my hands trying to rub the area of sting. What I did not realize
is that the remaining 99 Killer bees had also landed their venom
sacks on me.

I Battled The Killer Bees For My Life - A
True Life

Due to my long unruly hair on my head, my short baby
beard, the thick woolen pink sweater which I was wearing, my woolen
pants and shoes had nullified about 95 out of the 100 stings. Now
what I did not understand is that there were one or two people on
the road on which I was running. But these bees did not sting any of
them. They were actually laughing away holding their stomach when I
was wriggling in the bee sting pain and trying to dodge the repeated
attacks of the bees who kept following me, where ever I ran.

In fact, the bees were attacking so relentlessly as if they were
waiting to take revenge on me for some family feud or some regular
harm, I might have been doing for years to them. Who was to tell
them that this is the first ever time I tried to steal honey from
them. Finally, to avoid the bee attack, I ran into the MI Room or
the Army Medical Inspection room normally used for first aid. The
Medical Assistant there helped me to remove all the venom bags of
the killer bees.

The venom sacks were still twitching as if they
were alive. I was told by the Medical Assistant that they keep doing
this pumping action for about five minutes to ensure that the entire
venom in the sack is injected into the victim’s blood. He removed
almost all the bee stings from my face neck and hands. I stayed
inside the MI Room for about half an hour.

Killer Bees Attacked Me A Second Time - A
True Life Story

There were people walking
outside the MI Room and there were a few killer bees also patrolling
outside the doors of the MI Room. I thought by now the bees might have forgotten about me and may
be flying around just like that. So mustered some courage and walked
out of the MI Room. I got stung by a Killer bee even before I had
walked ten steps outside the MI Room. I ran back into the MI Room
once again.

I left the MI Room only after sunset ensuring that there
are no bees at all flying near the MI Room which is about 200 yards
away from the Killer bee hive. As I walked back home I saw people
looking at me with some sort of surprised look. I could feel ripples
go up and down my cheeks and forehead with each step I took. I
reached home and my mother was in tears. I didn’t quite understand
why she was crying.

My Face And Body Were Swollen From Killer
Bees Attack - A True Life Story

I went to the bathroom to take a bath in some hot water. I looked
into the bathroom mirror. I could hardly recognize myself. I face
looked like an elephant face all swollen up. The area between my
eyes and forehead were so badly swollen up that it looked as if I
had squint eyes. The skin on my cheeks were so badly stretched by
the swelling that I could see all the veins carrying blood in them.
A pin prick could have burst my cheeks like a balloon.

Then my
mother came there and told me not to take bath in that condition. I
had already started getting fever and by mid-night I was having 104
degree Fahrenheit temperature. My mother was using some cold water
on my body. I probably passed out and came back next evening after
about 24 hours. I found myself in the hospital. It took four full
days from the time the first Killer bee had stung me. The doctors were puzzled why my fever did not go away.

I Almost Lost My Life in Killer Bees Attack - A True Life Story

So they
probably removed my dress and found that one venom bag was still
attached to the inner side of my right arm of my sweater. Every time
I walked and the sweater touched the main body, the venom bag would
pierce my arm and put a small doze of the venom. This was going on
even when I rolled on my bed. Only after they removed my sweater did
they see that venom sack. I wonder what would have happened if the
whole killer bee hive of a million plus bees had decided to attack
me which is what the bees normally do, instead of the mere hundred
bees which attacked.